Specter's Rough Morning
By CQ-Roll Call Staff | May 10, 2010 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sen. Arlen Specter woke up today to two political headaches. First, the daily tracking poll in his primary -- which is now just a week and a day away -- finds Rep. Joe Sestak with all the upward momentum, though the Democratic nomination could still go either way.
Sestak was up by 5 points in the Muhlenberg College-Allentown Morning Call tracking poll, which has a 5-point margin of error. Of Democratic voters sampled, 11 percent were still undecided.
Second, there's what has to be the uncomfortable news that a nominee Specter voted against last year while he was still a Republican is going to be President Obama's next Supreme Court nominee.
It would be a pretty big slap to refuse to support the high court nominee of your own party's president, especially when that president is trying to help you hang on to your job. But how could Specter argue that someone he found unfit to argue cases before the Supreme Court is fit to rule on arguments in cases before the Supreme Court?
Take heart, senator, the choice of Elena Kagan isn't official until the White House says it is.
In the meantime, TPM's Christina Bellantoni links to Specter's own words from when Kagan last stood for confirmation, and Fox News has a good primer on Kagan.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2010/05/so-endangered-democrats-how-wi.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=eye-on-2010FWIW, (R)asmussen also has Sestak up by five.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/pennsylvania/2010_senate_election/election_2010_pennsylvania_democratic_primary_for_senate